Till the Butchers Cut Him Down

by Marcia Muller

  “Sounds like your guy’s gone camping,” she commented.

  It would have sounded that way to me, too, if I hadn’t known Suits was looking to make an illegal gun buy.

  * * *

  I took North Point across town to Aquatic Park, bypassing the congestion near Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf, and turned downhill at Ghirardelli Square. At the foot of Polk Street stood the nautical-style Maritime Museum building, a former bathhouse and restaurant constructed in the mid-thirties as a WPA project. It’s been a long time since bathers flocked to the protected cove behind it; about the only ones you see nowadays are members of the Dolphin swim club—hardy but, to my way of thinking, somewhat demented souls who daily brave the icy waters. The streamlined Moderne building now houses both the museum and the San Francisco Senior Center, and the park has been incorporated into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

  I wondered how Cap dodged the park-service patrols when he slept there in his van.

  The van wasn’t in evidence now, though. I checked the parking area at the end of Beach Street, circled Ghirardelli, then continued along North Point to the big parking lot by the fishing pier at the foot of Van Ness. Still no van.

  So, had the fisherman lied to me about Cap’s whereabouts? Or had the old-timer simply not arrived yet? Either way, things weren’t going well at all, and my sense of urgency about locating Suits was making me tense and edgy.

  I pulled into a parking space, contemplated my options, then called Carmen at the diner. Howie Tso had agreed to see me, he said, but not till seven o’clock.

  “Where?”

  “Here. Howie says he’s been lusting after my chicken-fried steak.”

  I’d seen one of those passing by on its way to an unwary customer. If Howie Tso was making a special trip to the diner for something that looked like that, he was not only a criminal but also insane. “See you at seven,” I told Carmen.

  Now what? Nearing four o’clock, hours to kill. Go back to suite C and further frustrate myself by poring over the documents in my briefcase? Go back to suite C and take a luxurious bath in that enormous Jacuzzi? Go back to suite C and get seriously into the vintage wine? The latter courses of action were tempting—and definitely uncalled for. There must be something—

  The phone buzzed. I snatched it up. Mick.

  “A nurse from U.C. Med Center called,” he said. “Noah Romanchek’s in intensive care and wants to see you.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” Visions of a violent confrontation between Suits and the attorney flashed through my mind.

  “Heart attack. From the way the nurse talked, I guess it’s serious. She said for you to hurry.”

  * * *

  I hurried. Across Van Ness to Fell Street, then a quick jog through Golden Gate Park past Kezar Stadium to Arguello, where I left the MG in Willie Whelan’s driveway. Rae’s former love owned a 1904 Edwardian just down from the med center parking structure; it would be faster to leave the MG there than to brave near rush-hour traffic on Parnassus Heights. I scribbled a note to Willie and stuck it under the windshield wiper, slipped a spare key through his mail slot in case he needed to move the car. Then I rushed uphill to the parking garage on Frederick Street, took the elevator to the Parnassus level, and—with the help of several kind strangers—finally located the intensive-care heart unit.

  Romanchek was in a private room, his right arm connected to an I.V. bag, his left to a heart monitor. His face was gray and even more skeletal than I remembered, and I realized with some surprise that, although I’d spoken frequently on the phone with him, I’d only seen him twice—once at my kitchen table and once in his office at GGL. His eyes were closed when I entered, but as I hesitated some feet from his bed he opened them.

  With an effort he said, “Thanks for coming.”

  “How are you?”

  “Bad one.” His mouth twitched. “Monitoring me. Irregular activity, they’ll make you leave. We’ll … talk … fast.”

  “Okay.” I moved closer and waited.

  “Been thinking … why it all happened. At the farm …”

  “Garberville?”

  “T.J.’s first mistake. Anna … never loved … But he was … obsessed.”

  “With Anna?”

  He nodded. “Dangerous … all that brooding. In Monora … another mistake. T.J. didn’t understand.”

  “About what?”

  Romanchek didn’t reply; his strength was flagging, his breath ragged.

  I said, “You’re talking about the Bodine frame? I found out that Bodine followed T.J. to Lost Hope and went after him.”

  “No … Anna.”

  “He went after Anna, and so—”

  “He would’ve … done anything for her. Went back to him. Left him. Lost Hope … must be when … he decided—”

  A nurse came in, saw me, scowled, and said, “Out.”

  I backed into the hallway, still looking at Romanchek. He was even grayer now, his lips white. His eyes followed me, frantic; he seemed to be struggling to finish what he’d started to tell me. Another nurse hurried into the room, then a doctor. Romanchek’s heart monitor must have gone off out at the nursing station. They shut the door, and an orderly pointed me toward the visitors’ lounge.

  I went in there and sat down. It was empty, but the TV was playing. I stared blankly at the tail end of a rerun of “Matlock.” Asked myself what the hell I was doing and turned it off. Then I went over my conversation with Romanchek, trying to make sense of it.

  Anna had never loved Suits. Well, maybe not at first, but later? On the night before she died? The day she died? You could have fooled me.

  “Dangerous … all that brooding.” Which of them had brooded? Suits? That didn’t strike me as in character. More likely Anna, who had told me she wasn’t a naturally cheerful woman. But why had it been dangerous?

  Suits hadn’t understood about the Bodine frame? That didn’t wash, not after what Josh had told me yesterday about the way he operated. Had something else happened in Monora that he hadn’t understood about?

  But there was no question that allowing the frame to go down had been the second mistake that Romanchek alluded to. And I was sure there had been a third mistake: Suits had killed Bodine after the former labor leader went after Anna in Lost Hope.

  Lost Hope—an apt name for the place.

  Still, my disjointed talk with Romanchek had raised more questions than it answered. I was beginning to suspect that we’d been operating from entirely different sets of facts and assumptions. There was something, perhaps, that the attorney knew and thought I knew, too. Something that would have made it all explicable. …

  It was close to six o’clock when a doctor came to the lounge. Was I a member of Mr. Romanchek’s family?

  A representative of his organization, I told her. How was he?

  She was sorry to inform me that Mr. Romanchek had passed away.

  I stood, put my fingertips to my lips. As if I were holding in words. That didn’t make sense; there were no words for this.

  The doctor was saying something about contacting the family. I told her to get in touch with Dottie Collier in L.A., provided the phone number. Then I moved past her to the door. She stopped me, hand on my arm. “He would have died within a few hours anyway,” she said. “And talking with you was very important to him.”

  I realized she was trying to absolve me of any guilt I might be feeling for somehow having hastened his death. Did I feel any? I honestly didn’t know. Nodding, I went out to the elevator.

  I supposed I should feel guilty. Our conversation had been very important to Romanchek, and I hadn’t even understood it.

  Twenty-two

  The windows of Miranda’s diner glowed yellow against the surrounding darkness. They would have seemed inviting under other circumstances, but I stood on the sidewalk for a long moment, steeling myself for the upcoming encounter with Howie Tso. Romanchek’s death had left me drained; now I was here to talk with a criminal whose p
articular scam I flat-out hated. In order to get the information I wanted, I’d need to handle Tso with finesse.

  As I started across the sidewalk, a man stepped through the diner’s door: slender and on the tall side, attired in a long brown leather coat. A shock of dark hair fell onto his forehead, and below it his eyes were lively and intelligent. He surveyed me in the light from Miranda’s neon sign and said, “Ms. McCone? Howie Tso.” Before I could reply, he grasped my upper arm and guided me to the right, into the shadows. “We’ll take a walk. You have exactly four minutes.”

  I shook his hand off and moved a few steps away from him. Placed my own on the .38 inside the flap of my purse. “Why four minutes?” I asked.

  “Because my wife and I are due at a gallery opening, and I plan to be on time.”

  “Why did you agree to see me at all, then?”

  Tso began walking south along the shoreline. I matched his pace, keeping my distance. “Two reasons,” he said, ticking them off on slender fingers. “One, Carmen was good to me when I was a kid scrounging odd jobs around the piers. He doesn’t often ask a favor. Two, I was curious about you.”

  I read the papers; I knew who Tso was. Presumably that worked both ways.

  He added, “We’ve wasted nearly a minute on nonessentials. What do you want?”

  “Carmen sent a man to you about buying a gun. T. J. Gordon.”

  “Neither confirmed nor denied.”

  “Gordon is my client. You may have heard of him; his wife was killed in an explosion last summer. He’s bent on avenging her death. I want to know what kind of weapon he bought and anything else he may have said to you.”

  Tso stopped under one of the pierside security lights. It cast long shadows on his features, made his small eyes glitter.

  “Carmen warned me that you don’t reveal anything about your … transactions,” I went on, “but in this case you will. I’m the only one who can stop Gordon from killing somebody with the gun you sold him.”

  Tso looked bored. “I imagine,” he said, “that if I were dealing in firearms—which I certainly do not admit to—any number of them would be used to kill people. That’s what they’re for. And illegally obtained firearms can seldom be traced.”

  “Mr. Tso, I’m not working for any of the law-enforcement agencies that are interested in you, if that’s what you’re concerned about. All I want to do is prevent a murder.”

  He shrugged, looked at his watch.

  “Of course,” I added, “if a murder occurs, there will be serious repercussions. T. J. Gordon is very high profile. Things could become difficult for you.”

  His eyelashes flickered—just a fraction.

  “As I said, Mr. Gordon is my client. And as an investigator licensed by the state, I have to cooperate with law-enforcement agencies in the event of a crime. I’d have no choice but to tell them everything I know about Gordon. Everything.”

  “Tell them all you want. You have no proof I sold him anything.”

  The four minutes were up by now, but Tso hadn’t looked at his watch again. I said, “No, I don’t have proof. Of course, there’s always Gordon. He’s on a self-destructive path right now, but once he gets his revenge, he’s going to snap out of that and start thinking of saving his own ass. The various agencies who’re interested in Howie Tso will look favorably on a plea bargain in exchange for getting something on you that’ll stick.”

  Tso was silent, eyes calculating.

  “You see what a mess it could be, Mr. Tso? Even if you’re not indicted, think of the publicity, the disruption of your day-to-day activities. And it really doesn’t have to get messy. Just tell me what I want to know, and I can stop it.”

  He began walking back toward Miranda’s, head bent, steps measured. Again I matched my gait to his, waiting.

  Finally he said, “This one time, Ms. McCone, I’ve decided to break my rule of client confidentiality.”

  “Wise decision.”

  Tso’s voice roughened, anger simmering under its surface. “Mr. Gordon bought an AR-fifteen semiautomatic rifle.”

  “When?”

  “This morning.”

  An assault rifle, combining heavy bullet impact and firepower. The thought of how much damage Suits could do with that made me shudder. I controlled it, asked, “Did he indicate where or when he planned to use it?”

  “No. He struck me as a man of few words and great focus.”

  “So he said nothing at all out of the ordinary?”

  Tso considered. “I wouldn’t call it out of the ordinary, but he did say he was going bird hunting. Then he laughed. He has a very strange laugh.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Tso.” I motioned at my watch, added, “I’m afraid I’ve made you late for your opening.”

  His lips tightened and his eyes narrowed. He turned abruptly and strode away.

  Not smart to make an enemy of a man like Tso, but I didn’t regret it. At one time I might have tried to forge an uneasy rapport with the arms dealer, but not any more. There was no longer room in my life for that sort of compromise.

  * * *

  I still couldn’t find Cap’s white van in the Aquatic Park area. I checked the quiet end of Beach Street near the Maritime Museum, circled Ghirardelli Square, widened my search, drove past the parking spaces at the foot of Van Ness again. Then I rechecked the museum and spotted a driveway entrance to the left of the building. Coasted down it toward the beach.

  The van was tucked into a parking slot behind the Senior Center’s lower-level quarters; flickering light showed through its rear windows. I stopped the MG at the foot of the drive and got out. The ground floor of the building was dark, although some function was going on upstairs; voices and laughter came from the long open-air gallery that overlooked the water. As I approached the van I kept close to the wall where I couldn’t be seen from above; went up to it and knocked softly on its back door.

  A man with white military-cut hair and silver-rimmed glasses peered out at me. He was clean-shaven, tidily dressed, and smelled faintly of bourbon. A TV played in the background—some sort of travelogue.

  “Are you Cap?” I asked.

  “That’s what they call me.”

  I identified myself and asked if we could talk. Cap took my card and examined it, then nodded and extended a hand to help me into the van. It was a custom model, with front seats that swiveled like easy chairs; the small TV sat on a table leaf that dropped down from one sidewall; around the carpeted rear space were what looked to be built-in storage bins. Not the home of any ordinary street-sleeper.

  Cap turned the passenger’s seat around so I could sit there and offered me a drink. When I declined, he poured himself a finger of bourbon from a bottle next to the TV and took it to the driver’s seat.

  “Glad you came by,” he said. “I’ve seen this special before, and I was getting bored with it.” He picked up a remote control from a console between us and muted the sound; the images continued to flicker—animals on a faraway veldt.

  For someone who illegally lived in his van, Cap seemed curiously at ease and trusting of a stranger. I asked, “How do you get away with parking here?”

  “I have an overnight permit from the Senior Center. They’re understaffed. I help them out on Mondays in exchange for the permit.”

  “And on the other nights?”

  He smiled, pleased at my interest. “I have similar arrangements along the rest of the waterfront. It’s the most free existence I can manage now that I’m too old to go to sea.”

  “I understand that you and my friend T. J. Gordon had some interesting conversations about how the port used to be.”

  Cap frowned; it was clear the name meant nothing to him.

  I slipped Suits’s photo from my bag and passed it over. He held it up to the TV’s light. “Oh, fascinating fellow. I never did get his name.” He handed it back to me, added, “Haven’t seen him in quite a while. How is he?”

 
; “Not very well.” I told him what had happened to Suits since last summer.

  The furrows on Cap’s forehead deepened. He drank off his bourbon, poured another finger. “Even if I’d known his name, I wouldn’t’ve heard about any of that. I avoid newscasts and the papers; at my age you can’t take too much gloom and doom. But I did know that he—T.J., you said?—was in trouble, and when he stopped showing up on Thursdays, I guessed things might have gone badly for him.”

  “You saw him on Thursdays?”

  “Well, most. Down at Mission Rock, where I have an arrangement with a small ship-repair facility.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  Cap thought. “August. Second to last Thursday. That was the only time he talked in detail about his problems.”

  And later turned up at Carmen’s drunk on bourbon. I looked at Cap’s bottle. “Curious,” I said, “considering he’s such a private man.”

  Cap rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well, it’s been my experience that even private people need to confide their troubles, and for most of them it’s easier to confide in a stranger than in someone they’re close to. Myself, I confide only in strangers. And your friend T.J. had a load of problems weighing on him.”

  “He told you about the attempts on his life? The business reversals?”

  He nodded.

  “Anything else?”

  “… I don’t like to break a confidence.”

  “Cap, T.J.’s set out on a very self-destructive course this past week. You may be able to tell me something that’ll give me some idea of how to help him.”

  “Well, I don’t know. Most of what he said had to do with the wife that died.”

  “And her death is exactly why he’s self-destructive. He plans to kill the person who set the explosion. What you tell me could prevent another murder.”

  Cap was silent a moment—shocked, I thought. Then he slouched lower in his chair, sipped reflectively from his glass. “All right; it’s not that original a story, anyway. Your friend described the living arrangement he and his wife had. Said he was tired of a long-distance marriage. He wanted to bring her here to the city, have her with him from then on. He realized how lonely she was, but he didn’t know if she’d be willing to move that far away from her people; I gather she was Indian, working with the young folks in her tribe. And he also was afraid he’d mess up again.”